Body as Sacred Space in Kalaricikitsa of Kerala, South India
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/rosa.v3i2.235Keywords:
human body, kaḷaricikitsā, Kerala, religion and pilgrimageAbstract
Kalaricikitsa, a unique traditional medicinal praxis, practised in a kalari or arena where young men and women learn kalarippayattu, martial arts of Kerala, employs various massage therapies for healing and wellness in which the human body plays a significant role. Though the human body has been a subject of study in various disciplines including philosophy, anthropology, sociology, history, and religion, scholars of religion have not explored kalaricikitsa from a Hindu religious perspective. Based on fieldwork, this essay explicates the connection between religion and healing in kalaricikitsa and augments current discourses of the body from a Hindu devotional perspective. Divided into two sections, first it discusses the tensions, traditions, and treatments of kalaricikitsa within its historical framework, second it explicates the role of the human body as a nexus of the divine and human enterprise in kalaricikitsa. I suggest that kalaricikitsa attempts to restore and maintain equilibrium of the physical and religious through the human body as a space transcending the dichotomy between the microcosm and the macrocosm, the divine and human.
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